I would take a Chonda any day over a Briggs
I wouldn't except for repowering lawn mowers. On saying that, I'd only buy Vanguard.
The best Briggs & Stratton in my opinion would be the c1990's Mitsubishi made single cylinder Vanguard horizontal shaft engines. I service one that has clocked over 19,000 hours with no issues whatsoever. Sadly these are now made in China as Briggs terminated the agreement with Mitsubishi as Briggs wanted to sell Briggs & Stratton engines in Japan.
Briggs & Stratton-Wikipedia Then there's the Vanguard V-Twin, as of 2016, these are still made in Japan by Daihatsu. I have a 2009 16HP V-Twin on a generator that has 9,500 hours on it.
I decided to strip it down as it was starting to blow a little smoke on start up and it's much better to replace the rings before they wear out completely. It still had cross hatch in the bores and the rings were half worn. The problem was the valve guides, as the engine has to come out of the frame to adjust them so I was a little too slack on doing the adjustment and the exhaust valve heads had recessed and wallowed out the guides.
